The invention relates to an apparatus for obtaining cheese material from milk.
Such apparatuses serve for the preparation of cheese fractions from previously pasteurized milk in a continuous process. An apparatus of this kind is disclosed in German patent publication DE 195 31 601 A1. It has a trough with an inner wall formed as an endless dished belt which is continuously transported in a longitudinal transport direction from a milk filling zone via at least one coagulation zone and a fraction cutting zone to a discharge zone.
In order for the milk to be able to coagulate homogeneously and free of disturbance during the transport within the trough it must be transported in a flow-free, turbulence-free and vibration-free manner. For this, partition walls with a semi-circular outline are inserted at substantially equidistant intervals into the inner wall of the trough perpendicular to its longitudinal direction. The inner volume of the trough is thereby subdivided into cells in which the coagulation process can take place free of disturbance. A clamping device is associated with each partition wall by means of which the inner wall of the trough consisting of resilient material can be tensioned with slight deformation about the round region of the periphery of the partition wall confronting it. In this way a stable connection is obtained between the inner wall of the trough and the partition wall which seals neighboring cells relative to one another.
The known apparatus has the disadvantage that a partition wall coupled to the inner wall of the trough is in many cases not able to withstand the pressure of the difference in filling level which results when bounding differently filled cells. The partition wall can yield to the hydrostatic pressure of the content of the more filled cell. The end face of the partition wall confronting the inner wall of the trough then slides along the inner wall of the trough so that the lower side of the partition wall tilts in the direction of the less filled cell.